On the second day after Osama Bin Laden was annonced dead myself and some other students and the lecturer Pete went to Ground Zero. When we arrived there the atmosphere was buzzing and so vibrant but also sad, there was celebrations that Bin Laden was dead and there was also people that held photographs of their dead family members. For the people of america the atmosphere felt like a day of closure for them. We wondered why there was so many tv cameras around and then we found out that Barrack Obama was doing a speech. I feel that going to Ground Zero has added to my photojournalist portfolio as I got some really good photograph that day. My favourite is of a little girl and she was remembering those who are dead, she kept following me so I ask her mom if I could take some photographs and they look really good because you can see the sadness in her eyes.

This was a storie about the first asian girl Annie zaidi and how she had passed her FA level 2 coaching badges. This was a really nice storie as you do not see many asians girls that have done this because of their religion but she really shows her passion when she speaks and she says that she sees herself just like the girl in the film bend it like Beckon. I went with the reporter Sam Dimmer to do the photography, she was at the hillz fm radio station in the Coventry City Centre. I got some really nice shots of her, I thought that because football is her passion then I would capture her as she poses and holds the ball. There was a photograph used in the Coventry Telegraph and then my other favourite photograph which was a wide shot and it had the long big building of flats behind was printed in the Nuneton Telegraph. I was so pleased to see my images and Annie was great to work with along with the reporter, what did dissapoint me though was that my name was not printed to say that it was my photograph, and it is really nice to see your name printed.

This is a newspaper that I had found at the end of week which tells people the information of stories on the main website. I really liked how they used my favourite photograph as I wanted to see it printed somewhere.

This was a morning storie that had come in so we had to be quick to get it. On the job to get the storie was me, the reporter Tina Juday and Mark Radford the photographer. There was a live bomb that was found in a garage in Coventry and it was a old fire bomb. At first it was a lot of waiting as they had to wait for the bomb disposal team to get there, it was actually found y two removal men as they were removing items from a house of an old lady that died for the new home owners to come in that day. I got a shot of the house and I did like this shot as it shows the road name of where the house is. Because you could get near to what was going on and the bomb disposal army men so I had to use my 300 lens and I did get some fantastic shots from so far back and they actually made the front page which I was very proud of. Me and the reporter Tina then went around the house to go and ask people what they think about the bomb that was in the garage, this was kind of like a voxpop, capturing close up of their faces. Also because they had not been notified it was nice to capture their reactions as Tina discussed the bomb with them. I also did a close up of the man and it was his house and he had no idea about the bomb. It was really nice to see my name on front page and also it was nice to get a storie like that one, very exciting. My favourite photograph is the back of the army man as he closes the back of the van door, the sun outlines the outside of his left side of his body and it really adds effect to the photograph.

This was an article about Coventry City Centre and how the City is getting even more like a ghost town as we are in the recession and all of the stores around the City Centre are closing down. For this storie I went out with reporter Sam Dimmer. The first thing when we went out was I photographed the stores around the City that had closed, I took a photograph of the Allied Carpet Store, the two stores that are shuttered down and have to let on them and also a close up of the poster in the window of a closed Waterstones store. When going out and doing these photographs it does make you realise how the world is changing. We then went and did voxpop of 6 different people to see what they think of how all the shops are closing down in Coventry and also where they are most likely to shop and the results turned out that Coventry is not one of the most places that these people shop. I was really happy with the photographs from the voxpop but the photographs of the shops I wish that I had of done long exposures so that it did go with the title, to make the photographs look more of the ghost town, having the empty shops and signs in focus and then the people as they walked past blurred from the movement but to be honest there was not a lot of people at the time.

This was a protest that was going on and it was to gain to let people know about what is happening and how the council are going to close the citizen advice bureu office, this is a place where people go for help and guidance. Their aim was also to get as many signatures that they can to try and keep the office open. I went with the photographer Lee Bubsy and he learnt me about how you have to have the crowd under control, to shout to people to get in to the postions that they were told for the photograph. When I turned up there it was packed with people and I did think well where would I start with positioning people, but it is all about crowd control when you have a lot of people to get in the photograph. I watched Lee to see his technques. I then stayed there with the reporter to capture some more photograph. I then went back to the office to show Lee what kind of photographs that I had got and he really like them especially how people are not focusing on me but they are shouting to let people know whatnis happening and how they call for more support.

This kind of article is called a voxpop, for this kind of article it is to see what the people think, to ask them and to see what their respose is to something that is going on in the news or something in Coventry. Here we went out and asked people what they think about the royal wedding and whether the council should be helping to get people in the party mood and to celebrate the royal wedding. It was a chance to see who was celebrating and what people will actually be doing on the day of the weddding. For voxpop you have to capture photographs of people as they chat to the reporter, these photographs have to be head shots but they can not be looking at you right in to the camera. I did think that this was different and it is something that I like photograph, I just love seeing the different movements of different peoples faces when I have captured them. I have found that some reporters do it differently about the photography part as people think oh no we don’t want a photograph in the paper. Some reporters ask before seeing their views, the photographer asks first and some reporters try and get the talker to get in to the conversation first and then ask for the photograph. I do feel that I have to ask each of the reporters what they prefer to do, because they know the way how they get their speakers.

The taxis were on strike in Coventry City Centre and I was sent out on a task to go and find some taxis with signs on as the strikes were going on for a few weeks so they needed images that they could resuse over the weeks in the newspaper. I did find it hard when I was out looking for taxis, then I found them. I had 20 minutes to get a few images. I did find some taxis but all the taxis all seemed the same from the photographs that I had seen on the system in the office, I decided to get photographs of taxi drivers but instead I found the guy that owns Central taxis and his name is Ku Marverma, he helped me and let me have the sign and I moved it around one of his cabs. In the photograph the boss does look strong and has an anger look expression as I told him to act how he feels right now. When I got back to the office I did really not like the images as I felt I did not come back with strong results than what I had wanted. To my shock with out them telling me my photograph was nearly on a full page and it really made me happy, I actually loved the photograph more and more once I had seen it published as my work was obviously liked.

This is an interesting job to go to, this was what I like about doing photography for a newspaper is that you get to photoraph the sad things that are happening aswell as shows that are taking place. The Egyption exhibition was a big part of Coventry and especially the Herbert as it was having rare ornaments brought in from around the UK that were thousands of years old, from the Egyption world. Photographing the pieces that were on show for the exhibition was quite strict because there are some that are so sensitive as they are carried with gloves and also because if there was a piece from another Art Gallery then you had to be carefull as they may not want it published, we had a lady come around with us called Lucy to tell us what is ok to photograph. With exhibitions you do have to be carefull and they are stricts because the value of these accient pieces. When we was out on the job there was a photographer from The Coventry Observer Newspaper so we had to make sure that we did not have the same images. I really like working with Joe, for these shots he used a range of different lighting and I was his assistant with the flash, what I like is also that he was using the spot lights in the exhibition room, he really captures the people that work at the museum as they really look like they are exploring the pieces with interest in the photographs that he had captured. It was nice that he showed the workers in the piece that made the exhibition and spent their time in to it and that we captured the pieces of the accient Eygpt really well. He also got me to go around and write down each name of the exhibition pieces, it was my job to make sure I had wrote them out clearly so that joe could understand my own writing and also that I made the description clear to show which text went with which photograph as he was sending the photographs from home as he had a lot of jobs on that were on the other side of coventry. This was the first time that I had been to an exhibition to advertise it and I really enjoyed it so much.